The IT Nerd

TechCrunch is reporting that a change in TikTok’s privacy policy for US users that is sure to raise concerns from your house to the White House:

A change to TikTok’s U.S. privacy policy on Wednesday introduced a new section that says the social video app “may collect biometric identifiers and biometric information” from its users’ content. This includes things like “faceprints and voiceprints,” the policy explained. Reached for comment, TikTok could not confirm what product developments necessitated the addition of biometric data to its list of disclosures about the information it automatically collects from users, but said it would ask for consent in the case such data collection practices began.

The biometric data collection details were introduced in the newly added section, “Image and Audio Information,” found under the heading of “Information we collect automatically” in the policy.

This is the part of TikTok’s Privacy Policy that lists the types of data the app gathers from users, which was already fairly extensive.

Then there’s this part:

We may collect biometric identifiers and biometric information as defined under US laws, such as faceprints and voiceprints, from your User Content. Where required by law, we will seek any required permissions from you prior to any such collection.

The company wasn’t able to provide any further information to TechCrunch. Which is interesting to me. The US-specific nature of that change may reflect states introducing privacy laws for biometric data, that still doesn’t tell us why or how TikTok intends to collect it.

Keep in mind that TikTok is owned by ByteDance which is a Chinese company which has a very sketchy reputation. Thus these changes need to be taken with a fair amount of suspicion.

This entry was posted on June 4, 2021 at 8:44 am and is filed under Commentary. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.